Industry-Funded Study Finds Fracking Safe for Los Angeles

Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Fracking for oil in Los Angeles
County poses no threat to the environment and doesn’t add to the
risk of earthquakes, according to a report funded by the owner
of one of the largest urban oil fields in the U.S.

The findings come from a yearlong study by Plains
Exploration & Production Co., owner of the Inglewood oil field
in the Baldwin Hills section of Los Angeles. Hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking, of two test wells revealed no threat to
groundwater, air quality or added risk of induced seismic
activity, according to the report released yesterday.

The California Department of Conservation will soon release
draft rules for fracking, in which millions of gallons of
chemically treated water and sand are forced underground to
shatter rock and release trapped oil or natural gas. California
has generic rules for oil and gas drilling but no specific rules
for fracking, which has been linked to water contamination and
air pollution in other states.

“The study is limited to this field,” Damon Nagami,
senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said
in an interview. “It’s funded by Plains Exploration. We need
additional review by agencies in California with expertise in
these issues.”

Fracking is being used widely from North Dakota to
Pennsylvania and is credited with boosting U.S. production of
oil and gas. California regulators have asked drillers to
voluntarily disclose when fracking is used to complete oil or
gas wells, according to Don Drysdale, a spokesman for the
Department of Conservation. He said the release of the state’s
fracking rules is “several weeks away.”

Monterey Shale

In Pennsylvania, companies tapping the Marcellus Shale for
natural gas may drill several horizontal wells from a single pad
and use 4 million or 5 million gallons of water to fracture the
well. California companies drilling for oil in the Monterey
Shale typically use single vertical wells that can be fracked
with less then 50,000 gallons.

The state senate in May defeated a bill that would have
required drillers to notify neighbors in advance of fracking.
Separate measures to place a moratorium on fracking and to
require that drillers disclose chemicals used in the process
died in committee.

“We don’t have a good handle on it,” Drysdale said in an
interview.

Oil was first discovered in the area in 1880. A total of
1,475 wells have been drilled in the Inglewood field, which has
about 469 active production wells.

Fault Zone

The field, which holds an estimated 400 million barrels of
oil, sits atop the Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone. Fracking the
two test wells “had no detectable effects on vibration, and did
not induce seismicity,” according to the report.

Houston-based Plains hired the consulting firm Cardno
ENTRIX to undertake the study as part of a 2011 settlement with
Culver City and environmental and community groups. The 1,000-acre Inglewood field is surrounded by Culver City, Baldwin Hills
and Inglewood, making one of the largest urban oil fields in the
U.S.

“It sounds like the report has found that based on the
tests, it doesn’t seem like there were impacts from fracking
that we should be worried about,” Nagami said. “It is
attracting a lot of attention.”